Cooling plates for metallurgical furnaces, also called staves, are well known in the art. They are used to cover the inner wall of the outer shell of the metallurgical furnace, as e.g. a blast furnace or electric arc furnace, for two main reasons. The first function of the cooling plates is to provide a heat evacuating protection screen between the interior of the furnace and the outer furnace shell.
Originally, the cooling plates have been cast iron plates with cooling pipes cast therein. As an alternative to cast iron staves, copper staves have been developed. Nowadays, most cooling plates for metallurgical furnaces are made of copper, copper alloy or, more recently, of steel.
The second function of the cooling plates is to provide an anchoring means for a refractory brick lining, a refractory guniting or a process generated accretion layer inside the furnace. Hence, for improved anchoring, they are typically provided on their front side with alternating lamellar ribs and grooves.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,437,651 describes a blast furnace comprising cast iron cooling plates mounted on the inner wall side of the blast furnace's armour. Conventionally, the cooling plates have a panel shaped body with cooling passages arranged therein. The front side of the cooling panel, i.e. facing the furnace interior and to which the refractory lining is fixed, comprises alternating ribs and grooves. The grooves have a dove-tail cross-sectional shape and inserts having a corresponding trapezoidal shape are affixed within the grooves and project from the front side. The inserts are made from silicon carbide and placed in situ when casting the iron of the cooling plate. They are intended to improve the connection between the cast iron and the refractory lining.
In the furnace, the cooling plates with their concrete/refractory lining are subject to important heat and mechanical deformation resulting from high fluxes in the blast furnaces. The concrete/refractory lining is particularly sensitive to such mechanical stresses, and is further subject to high wearing due to abrasion caused by the burden material descending through the blast furnace.